


A Fatalist's Fragmentary Requiem

by Cute_Little_Riddle



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Character Death, Drama, F/M, Insomnia, Manipulation, Mental Health Issues, Possessive Behavior, Romance, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Insert, Sex, Trauma, Vaginal Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:48:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29955672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cute_Little_Riddle/pseuds/Cute_Little_Riddle
Summary: [A literary fragment]When Edward Nashton escapes from the law, his unexpected encounter with the lonely woman seems fated. He manages to rescue her from the clutches of her tormentors, realizing that she - like himself - was denounced. And despised by everyone, she became like an equal of him; a reason to hold on to this cruelly yet beautiful world. Being surrounded by an image that resembled a war scene, she begins to understand the end of her suffering; contrary to all imagination, she shows him pure gratitude.  All his life he had been looking for her.From now on, he would never let her leave his side.
Relationships: Edward Nashton/Original Female Character(s), Edward Nygma/Original Female Character(s), The Riddler/OC
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	A Fatalist's Fragmentary Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a literary fragment, thus incomplete; still, I thought it is appropriate to publish it.
> 
> "Incomplete" in my context means that this story has a beginning, an end, and many plot scenes. But, it lacks parts to connect events in detail. I will not rewrite every part, but possibly I will manage to complete this story as I publish it.
> 
> I have to mention that I wrote every word of this story without shame for myself at first. To escape from everyday life and as a way to relieve stress. In these days I even dare to speak of a coping strategy: If I follow my wandering thoughts over that border of clarity and let strange ideas and emotions take their course, this simply keeps me sane in life.
> 
> There are days when I am tired - ridiculed by the world - and half asleep trying to dream, to distract myself. I was told that parts of this story would evoke sad emotions, while others would bring happy ones. So I was advised to publish it all bit by bit. One part of the story at a time
> 
> This story will not disappear forever in a folder on my Microsoft Surface.
> 
> [Note: I am attempting a translation into English myself. I did not grow up with English - learned the basics in school - but for some years I have been working more with this langueage. Therefore, I am open to any form of feedback. I need it. Translation is harder than it seems.]
> 
> To all those who give me courage in life I devote this great step.  
> And I thank everyone who takes the time to read this.  
> Each one of you is amazing.  
> Enjoy~

\- 1 -

Edward was missing the strength in the jump to overcome another fifty centimeters.

In time he managed to stretch his cane towards the fragile edge of the roof and managed to hang on to it. Edward was unable to extend his free arm and legs to protect himself from a collision with the outer wall of the building. His breath half escaped him as his face met the rough concrete head-on. At least he had escaped the precipice.

His nose bloodied, he came back to his senses and was surprised that he had been able to hold on despite his daze. With his free hand he reached searchingly above him until he got a firm grip on the edge. He then unhooked his walking cane and threw it up. With caution he climbed up after it.

He remained on his knees, gathering his escaped strength. Blood ran along his chin. Fortunately, the nose from which it came was not broken. From his pocket he took out a cloth and pressed both nostrils together against the bridge of his nose to stem the bleeding. For a few minutes he held it there, taking deep breaths through his mouth as he checked over the edge of the roof that the Gotham City Police Department officers in their patrol cars had continued down the street and thus lost track of him.

As he removed the cloth, he dragged the pooled blood with him like a coagulum. Little continued to drip from the nasal vestibule, which he was not bothered by. Once home, he would continue to treat his injuries. With that, his next goal was set: to get home. But he was still in the center of the city and had miles to go before he reached the outer district.

Instead of continuing on his way, the failed jump began to stir emotions within him. This was not the first time he had rushed across the rooftops of Gotham City. Moreover, he had already covered much greater distances. Why he failed this jump by half a meter remained a mystery to him.

***

Continuing across the flat roof finally, Edward was about to dismiss this incident as a miscalculation when a shrill laughter reached his hearing.

He went back to the edge from below which he thought he had perceived the acoustic stimuli, but changed his direction to the rear of the building. For instead of the shrill high-pitched voice, a choking strangled sound rose above the din of the city.

Looking down the ledge, he recognized a group standing gathered. Seeking an exit from this cage, a woman of diminutive stature circled in the center. Kneeling, she tried to crawl through long legs as they clenched and held her. She lacked any possibility of escape. Many shouted words in disarray Edward could not hear at this distance. But shortly after the circle broke up, from both sides people kicked at the already weak figure.

The crowd thinned out. She laid powerless on the ground.

Edward had been concentrating on her for so long that the surroundings had slipped his mind. Scattered across the narrow abandoned backyard were countless documents and torn papers - probably pages from books - on the damp floor.

A backpack was lying near the corner that led to the street. A woman from the group - dressed smartly and lifting her chin - picked up the backpack, returned to the one lying on the ground, and hit her with it.

Edward had had other plans in mind, but now he could not turn away from this scene. He did not know the background of the situation he was following, only knew he could not leave it at that. Even if heroic actions had never been his specialty.

He would take on these half-assed kids with ease.

With that in mind, he climbed down the rescue ladder to his left, keeping a firm grip on his walking stick. But when he reached the bottom, he saw that some of those gathered had gone ahead a few feet. They had dragged the woman he was prepared to rescue across the floor and were holding her over an open sewer. As if she were garbage that could not be disposed of in any other way.

In the heat of the moment, he started sprinting, but before he could get moving, the figure of the little woman disappeared into the ground, screaming in panic. For some unexplainable reason, her screams echoed in his ears when she had long since fallen silent, and Edward reckoned that she had either hit the stone floor several meters deep or had been swept away in the floods of the sewage water. He suspected the second, because the storms of the last few days had flooded the city's sewage treatment plants. Still, the portrait would not leave his thoughts: Edward saw her lying there. Despite fractures all over her body, a pneumothorax and a pool of blood forming around her - near death - her body was maintaining essential life functions, due to the intact brain stem.

Driven by the moment, Edward swung out with his walking cane before the first of the group even noticed his presence and knocked him down. He broke the next one's arm and leg, while the bystanders watched in horror and did nothing. He continued until only the blond-haired woman trembled before him. The shrill amused laughter that had burned his whole body had come from her. She had sent it out into the world in response to her tormenting actions. It had evoked distant memories in Edward. Experiences to which he had long given no attention, had struck him deeply through this situation.

The woman before him barely produced a clear pleading word between her whimpers. Edward brought her down with a blow to the back of her knees. Bracing herself on her hands and wailing in pain, she didn't see the first blow to the back of her head coming. She went down like her own victim before. Edward banged his foot against her head, thus turning her face from the ground in his direction that she was facing him. Edward lunged for more punches. Enraged, gripped by disappointment at his defeats, he could not calm down.

The group lay scattered without motion. Limbs stood straightened in unnatural positions. Skull bones were open on one side from impact trauma. Blood and secretions had flowed from openings in the face and battered wounds during the violence.

Edward did not notice that speckled evidence clung to himself that could be traced to him alone for the murders. He had let people meet their end in his death-traps for lesser reasons.

They had all deserved death in his eyes. Not them, however.

***

Edward came to his senses, the unstoppable emotions draining from him. He looked around. The fact that he had lost the woman - whom he had tried to save without letting his mind decide, instead because of pervading emotions - was not here to admire his glorious victory, saddened him. Frustration returned once again.

He looked behind him to the sewer. Looking in, he could not bring himself to do on his own. He could visualize what lay ahead of him without reference. Either she lay feet deep in the darkness, probably with a broken neck, or he did not find her at all, for the streams beneath the streets of Gotham could carry even beings with superhuman strength.

But as Edward was about to end the day as imperfect and start the final journey home, he heard sparsely echoing sounds of pain.

Therefore, Edward did not proceed willfully - instead, driven by his inner yearnings - toward the entrance to the sewage. Hanging, he saw her, with her soaked wraparound dress hanging from a loose rusted rung. Clinging with one hand to more of the ladder's remains, she struggled against the pressure of the sewage and gasped several times in shock as all the wastewater enveloped her, taking her breath away and making her retch in disgust.

In surprise, she looked up.

Edward felt a stabbing pain as he looked into her eyes, which tried to focus him, seemingly failed at it, and only fear showed its face to him.

The young woman could barely manage to hold on to the ladder.

Edward called out to her, but his voice was lost in the roar of the current. Nearing the end of her reserves, Edward joined her in the channel, remaining on the top rungs so that he could reach her easily, but not too low to fall into the death trap himself.

In the heat of the moment, she let go of the rusting metal of the ladder and grabbed his forearm with both hands. Edward pulled her up, realizing that she was light as a feather and would have been swept away by the floods without further pressure had he waited seconds longer.

Pressing the drenched and hypothermic body against him, giving her a sense of security, he stepped out of the doorway, placing her in front.

While he rose, she remained on her knees. His heart again pierced by a spear as he heard her sobs and (despite suppressing them as best she could) they grew in volume. At times she coughed so that it was difficult for her to breathe and a strong gag reflex set in, whereupon she vomited a gush consisting of the swallowed musty sewage sludge, bile and food residue.

Edward came to her and put a hand on her back, but he believed she hardly noticed it, due to the effort her lungs were demanding. After a while she lifted her upper body, trying to look at her surroundings and at the same time tried process what had just happened.

The first thing in her eyes were her documents, her torn books, not the dead. But when she saw them, tears came to her eyes again. Instead of crying in horror, fear, or even pain, she began to burst out laughing. Edward realized that this was not a reaction caused by sadness, pain and shock, as he had assumed at the first moment. Neither did he give this incident the status of short-circuit reaction. The feelings she gave off were deeply pent up inside her and had only been waiting to break out of her. She showed relief and joy coupled with inner satisfaction.

He left this moment to her. On the one hand, in order not to announce his own brief fear to the outside world, that he had believed she would now become more afraid of him than of her tormentors before. Secondly, he set to work picking up her remaining papers. Again his eyes fell on the destroyed books and the recurring name of that author whose works he also respected.

Watching him, she calmed down, but did not wipe away the secretion spread over her face. He could tell by her attitude that she was disgusted with herself. Her mind did not know how to handle the situation any further. Her attention found, next to the entrance to the canal, one of her colored notes, which were now barely legible. Rather, they resembled an abstract painting. If this were a professional work in the Louvre and the name of the artist Van Gogh were under it, analysts would recognize anger, sadness and nostalgia in it.

Again tears flowed down her cheeks, but she did not begin to sob, instead an anguished cry left her throat. Too much had happened for her mind and her heart could no longer bear any of it. She had already forgotten her savior.

Edward acted instinctively and knelt down to her, laying the papers gathered into a neat pile beside him. For although it was important to him to save as much as possible, her salvation came before the maintenance of the objects already lost and replaceable. He was going to replace everything for her and offer her better.

He could not watch this wondrous heart suffer. He brought his two hands closer to her face, whereupon she was momentarily startled and fell silent. Taking advantage of this, he cupped her cheeks, which were cold and greasy due to the dirt. Unlike herself, he cared little for the stench and filth. Despite his efforts to present the best appearance, Edwards himself had already found himself in the worst of sewers.

For the moment, her thoughts could not place who he was. Finally, she remembered that he had been fishing her out of there.

Removing one hand, he reached under one of her arms at her back and gently pushing her off the ground, instructing her to follow him.

She obeyed his uplifting movements shakily, but for some inexplicable reason she found a sense of security with him, making her footing firmer.

When it was beyond doubt that she would stand, he also let the second hand leave her face, bent down, not taking his eyes off her ( her eyes connected with his) and picked up the pile. As if it was a natural act, he handed it to her. Wordlessly, she accepted her remaining belongings and clutched them - crumpling everything only increasingly - tightly against her chest.

A weak, "Thank you, Monsieur," left her lips. Edward had never heard anything more beautiful reaching his ears.

***

Noticing that she didn't know what her next move should be, he gently began to respond to her.

"How are you feeling?" He did not want to give her the opportunity to answer wordlessly with just a nod, for only further away would it carry her mind. One goal was to bring her back to consciousness. It was visible that not only was she overwhelmed by the situation, but that far more was to blame for her condition. He just couldn't make out what it was yet.

"I don't know," she confessed shakily, keeping her eyes lowered.

Then her eyes fell on his cane, which she hadn't even noticed him picking up and now finding hanging on his wrist. On its handle she found stains, an oozing liquid of red color, which seemed to become increasingly darker. The thought of the bodies came again. She looked around and again at the cane. Her mind began to create links again. She realized that he was responsible when she looked up at him again, finding discolorations of similar hues on his jacket and speckles on his fine features and hair.

She took a hand from the remnant of her belongings and searched in the pockets of her clothes. This panic-stricken action Edward misconstrued, believing she was becoming afraid of him and looking for something to defend herself.

"It has all come to an end now-" he assured her, ready to explain all this with semantics, when she surprisingly cut him off.

"I wish I could help clean up these smears, but I carry nothing of use with me."

Saddened, she looked down at a brown soaked cloth handkerchief, which must have been white before. Now he recognized the trembling of her limbs more clearly.

"There's no need for that, mademoiselle," he replied with a smile. No one else would respond to him so unselfishly in such a situation.

In response, he received only a nod. She began to look down at herself, exhausted.

"I wonder if I'll ever get this clean again?" she asked, looking up at him with widened eyes that reflected confusion but also revealed the reason for her condition.

Edward realized that her pupils were unnaturally dilated. Previously he had attributed this to the sparse incidence of light; now he detected no change in their wideness. The brown of her iris was barely visible as the lens had dilated to its limit. But for some unknown reason he was aware that she was not responsible for her condition herself.

He again took her face in both hands. She became aware that he had recognized it and frowned.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked unconsciously.

"That you are in a state of shock is comprehensible, however, this symptomatology is unmistakable. Is it known what was given to you?"

She shook her head as much as Edward would allow.

"Ketamine or Rohypnol... I'm not certain."

As if with this realization her awareness had gained strength she began to look around again. Edward let her.

"Am I imagining all this?" she asked, out of breath as she turned back to him.

"No," he admitted, expecting her to give him some distance. This she did not demand.

Tears gathered again in the corners of her eyes. Astonished, he looked at her lips, which were nevertheless overcome by a smile. At the same time she leaned with her cheek against one of his still raised hands. He felt her strong trembling.

"Thank you," she spoke to him from the depths of her heart.

Edward returned her smile, which was like that of an angel.

However, she was not granted to enjoy this bliss for long, as her mind jumped from one thought to the next.

"Am I speaking in a fever?" Another frown.

"No; in this battle you are close to victory," Edward assured her.

Again the corners of her mouth lifted, quickly giving way to oppression. Edward kept an eye on her eyes for possible improvement, but in doing so he only noticed more symptoms that worried him. Her eyes were moving uncontrollably to either side; nystagmus. He could not let her remain in this condition. Increasingly, the need to worry about her sprouted in him. As if she were the epitome of his own created Utopia.

***

In their half-enclosed position, the two still remained.

"I think I lost consciousness hours ago," she told him distantly, not knowing how to work with this information. Under the circumstances, it occurred to Edward, part of her memory might be missing. And he hoped that she had not had far worse done to her during that time. He would get to the bottom of this, but would save her from those realizations if his suspicions were true. All cruel memories he would eliminate. Should this also mean that he would have to prepare tenfold happiness for her.

"Hours, you say? That would explain the benzodiazepine wearing off."

"Then I will go home," she announced.

Edward did not dwell on the fact that the meaning of her words was far from his. For she had turned away from him so inexplicably quickly that Edward felt only an emptiness he could not bear.

"Wait!" In haste he seized her wrist. "In this condition I cannot answer for letting you go alone-"

"I'll pay for it!" she interrupted him again unconsciously-for in her senses she would never have interrupted a man like him-pointing to his suit.

Edward's anxiety subsided, causing him to relax his shoulders and approach her again. Still a part of his own mind believed her defensive actions were because of him, yet it was her consciousness that was merely trying to get itself in order.

"At least let me accompany you," he distracted her mind from at least that one concern.

It was only his clothes that gave her a headache. Although he received that suit from his tailor the day before, he could still replace it. He could not replace her. Therefore, he would not let her go, would that mean obeying her confused mind.

" You can' t do that," she replied. Her smile was now no longer full of joy, but full of sorrow, as if she felt humiliated. Something he did not want to be responsible for.

"How am I supposed to understand this?" requested Edward.

"I'll be fine!" she evaded his question and turned to the light of the alley.

"Please," he spoke softly, as she began to struggle against his hold. Even though he was squeezing her wrist tightly and it was probably hurting her, he couldn't just let her go.

She turned to face him, dropping her papers as she did so. Because of the fear and agitated feelings in her facial expressions, Edward let go of her.

She began to run away. From the outside, this could not be described as running, it was more of a limp, because apparently her foot was also injured and she was moving forward with difficulty.

Edward took a step forward and heard the rustling of paper beneath him.His mind acted in affect as hers did, and so he began to perceive his one and only opportunity that would bring her back to him, with which he could save her.

" _We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods!_ " he called to her, recognizing before his eyes the lines that were highlighted in green tones on one of the documents.

He had put a stop to her flight, for she showed no movement. She stopped. Trembling, she turned to face him.

Still he did not continue, sensing that she wanted to respond something, waited for her reaction ( expecting to lose her), but started to approach her, relieved, when she replied.

" _When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours_."

Taking the following words of Franz Kafka literally, he crossed the divide and went down on his knees before her.

"A _nd if I were to cast myself down before you and weep and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful?_ "

In kneeling position he realized of what short height she was, for he remained at eye level with her. Her eyes had briefly shown astonishment, but her posture gave way and so she loosened up.

Edward waited until she had gathered her courage to speak and joined in with her. " _For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively_ ", with each other forgetting their surrounding for these words, giving in to passion, " _as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell_."

At her chuckle he joined in.

"Monsieur..." she began in a sorrowful voice, "you cannot accompany me, as I have no home."

Edward rose and frowned.

"I mean your words are still hard to follow."

"I do not own a home. I live on the streets of this city." _This cursed city._

Edward didn't know how to answer her with words. How could a clever and literary woman, like her, not own a house, not even a small apartment?

"Mademoiselle, according to the circumstances, I consider that you accompany me."

Edward extended a hand toward her. Her arm came toward him. She paused.

"Monsieur. We are -" Strangers; that word could not pass her lips. They did not know each other, but they had never been strangers. They had too much in common for that.

"Edward. Edward Nashton," he introduced himself, still asking her to accept his hand.

Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his and smiled. "Angélique," she answered him tremblingly.


End file.
